Follow Apr. 1, 2021 Genetic analysis is all the rage and two separate studies have provided new insights into two peoples: the Scythians of yore, and the Basques of today. The story of the Scythians is one of motion: strangers riding in and mixing with the locals, only to have the same thing happen to them some centuries later. The story of the Basques is pretty much the opposite: they even seem to have eschewed mixing with nearby communities. Once thought of as a culture of basically horseback warriors constantly on the move, the Scythians are now believed to have been a culture that did include settling down, in some large towns as well, but whose nomadic warriors hugely impressed their neighbors: from the Persians to the Greeks to the Chinese. Today, the thinking is they consisted of groups characterized by shared motifs, including mortuary practices.